Direction: Max Barbakow
Country: USA
First-time director Max Barbakow teams up with screenwriter Andy Siara, and the result is a low-impact romantic comedy with fantasy.
During a Palm Springs wedding, the easygoing Nyles (Andy Samberg) hooks up with Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the dissatisfied sister of the bride. He ends up fleeing the place when chased by Roy (J.K. Simmons), a relentless man who keeps trying to murder him for quite some time. The reasons aren’t immediately obvious, but Nyles involuntarily drags Sarah into a secret cave that concedes them immortality in exchange of getting them stuck in a perpetual time loop. They just have to live the same day over and over again, the best they can. However, pain and suffering are real.
The idea of behaving like crazy with no rules and no guilt is attractive, prompting myriad possibilities for the plot. However, Barbakow and Siara squandered the chance of turning this comedy into something more than just a pair of laughs. As the time passes, the humor whether becomes more infrequent or descends into a basic level. If this is not enough, the nuanced repetitions grow a bit tedious.
Despite of a promising start, Palm Springs runs out of inspiration, settling down in a thousand unremarkable ‘wake ups’ that lead to nowhere.
